Friday, December 30, 2005

the possibility of Intel ditching its 14 year old "Intel Inside" tagline in January of 2006. Considering that the branding has helped Intel to become the fifth most valuable brand in the world, it was quite a shock that the company was thinking about pushing it aside. Today's Wall Street Journal [subscription required] confirms that rumor and Intel is indeed overhauling its corporate branding.

While we have previously talked about Intel's new product branding which you can view here, it's the new tagline, Leap Ahead, that is the most interesting to us. Intel is trying to get away from being known soley as a manufacturer of processors for computers and become a dominant force in all things related to consumer electronics.

People scoffed at NVIDIA when they said that they were going to get away from solely providing chips for graphics card and become a platform-centric company. The move worked for NVIDIA and they are now happy to provide stable computing platforms for both AMD and Intel in addition to mobile phones, PDAs and gaming consoles. Intel has already shown their ability to market their platforms on a large scale with their hugely successful Centrino mobile campaign. The company looks to do the same for Media PCs with Viiv. With increased competition coming at all sides from AMD, Intel's change of direction to adapt to changing market conditions couldn't come at a more opportune time

Xbox 360 mod chips due in a few weeks?

Ok, it was cute and all when Microsoft came out with their statements about how "hack-proof" the Xbox 360 was going to be, and they even admitted themselves that "sooner or later someone will work out how to circumvent security," but it seems like we're going to see some hackage sooner rather than later. SPOnG is reporting that the first mod-chips for the 360 will be available within a month, allowing the play of "backup" game copies, which, with the recently released software that allows Xbox 360 game data extraction, means that Microsoft might have some piracy on their hands before too long. Though, if it's any consolation for the boys in Redmond, SPOnG is reporting that "Microsoft's security is the best we've seen to date for a disc-system. It it weren't for the fact that DVD is used, it's likely that further development wouldn't have been worth anyone's time.” Oh the irony.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

1. The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence.According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems to continue to fester.

2. Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.Claims like this are based on the work of researchers who represent one relatively narrow school of research, "media effects." This research includes some 300 studies of media violence. But most of those studies are inconclusive and many have been criticized on methodological grounds. In these studies, media images are removed from any narrative context. Subjects are asked to engage with content that they would not normally consume and may not understand. Finally, the laboratory context is radically different from the environments where games would normally be played. Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. That's why the vague term "links" is used here. If there is a consensus emerging around this research, it is that violent video games may be one risk factor - when coupled with other more immediate, real-world influences — which can contribute to anti-social behavior. But no research has found that video games are a primary factor or that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person into a killer.

3. Children are the primary market for video games.While most American kids do play video games, the center of the video game market has shifted older as the first generation of gamers continues to play into adulthood. Already 62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older. The game industry caters to adult tastes. Meanwhile, a sizable number of parents ignore game ratings because they assume that games are for kids. One quarter of children ages 11 to 16 identify an M-Rated (Mature Content) game as among their favorites. Clearly, more should be done to restrict advertising and marketing that targets young consumers with mature content, and to educate parents about the media choices they are facing. But parents need to share some of the responsibility for making decisions about what is appropriate for their children. The news on this front is not all bad. The Federal Trade Commission has found that 83 percent of game purchases for underage consumers are made by parents or by parents and children together.

4. Almost no girls play computer games.Historically, the video game market has been predominantly male. However, the percentage of women playing games has steadily increased over the past decade. Women now slightly outnumber men playing Web-based games. Spurred by the belief that games were an important gateway into other kinds of digital literacy, efforts were made in the mid-90s to build games that appealed to girls. More recent games such as The Sims were huge crossover successes that attracted many women who had never played games before. Given the historic imbalance in the game market (and among people working inside the game industry), the presence of sexist stereotyping in games is hardly surprising. Yet it's also important to note that female game characters are often portrayed as powerful and independent. In his book Killing Monsters, Gerard Jones argues that young girls often build upon these representations of strong women warriors as a means of building up their self confidence in confronting challenges in their everyday lives.

5. Because games are used to train soldiers to kill, they have the same impact on the kids who play them.Former military psychologist and moral reformer David Grossman argues that because the military uses games in training (including, he claims, training soldiers to shoot and kill), the generation of young people who play such games are similarly being brutalized and conditioned to be aggressive in their everyday social interactions.

Grossman's model only works if:

* we remove training and education from a meaningful cultural context. * we assume learners have no conscious goals and that they show no resistance to what they are being taught. * we assume that they unwittingly apply what they learn in a fantasy environment to real world spaces.

The military uses games as part of a specific curriculum, with clearly defined goals, in a context where students actively want to learn and have a need for the information being transmitted. There are consequences for not mastering those skills. That being said, a growing body of research does suggest that games can enhance learning. In his recent book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, James Gee describes game players as active problem solvers who do not see mistakes as errors, but as opportunities for improvement. Players search for newer, better solutions to problems and challenges, he says. And they are encouraged to constantly form and test hypotheses. This research points to a fundamentally different model of how and what players learn from games.

6. Video games are not a meaningful form of expression.On April 19, 2002, U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. ruled that video games do not convey ideas and thus enjoy no constitutional protection. As evidence, Saint Louis County presented the judge with videotaped excerpts from four games, all within a narrow range of genres, and all the subject of previous controversy. Overturning a similar decision in Indianapolis, Federal Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner noted: "Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low. It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware." Posner adds, "To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it." Many early games were little more than shooting galleries where players were encouraged to blast everything that moved. Many current games are designed to be ethical testing grounds. They allow players to navigate an expansive and open-ended world, make their own choices and witness their consequences. The Sims designer Will Wright argues that games are perhaps the only medium that allows us to experience guilt over the actions of fictional characters. In a movie, one can always pull back and condemn the character or the artist when they cross certain social boundaries. But in playing a game, we choose what happens to the characters. In the right circumstances, we can be encouraged to examine our own values by seeing how we behave within virtual space.

7. Video game play is socially isolating.Much video game play is social. Almost 60 percent of frequent gamers play with friends. Thirty-three percent play with siblings and 25 percent play with spouses or parents. Even games designed for single players are often played socially, with one person giving advice to another holding a joystick. A growing number of games are designed for multiple players — for either cooperative play in the same space or online play with distributed players. Sociologist Talmadge Wright has logged many hours observing online communities interact with and react to violent video games, concluding that meta-gaming (conversation about game content) provides a context for thinking about rules and rule-breaking. In this way there are really two games taking place simultaneously: one, the explicit conflict and combat on the screen; the other, the implicit cooperation and comradeship between the players. Two players may be fighting to death on screen and growing closer as friends off screen. Social expectations are reaffirmed through the social contract governing play, even as they are symbolically cast aside within the transgressive fantasies represented onscreen.

8. Video game play is desensitizing.Classic studies of play behavior among primates suggest that apes make basic distinctions between play fighting and actual combat. In some circumstances, they seem to take pleasure wrestling and tousling with each other. In others, they might rip each other apart in mortal combat. Game designer and play theorist Eric Zimmerman describes the ways we understand play as distinctive from reality as entering the "magic circle." The same action — say, sweeping a floor — may take on different meanings in play (as in playing house) than in reality (housework). Play allows kids to express feelings and impulses that have to be carefully held in check in their real-world interactions. Media reformers argue that playing violent video games can cause a lack of empathy for real-world victims. Yet, a child who responds to a video game the same way he or she responds to a real-world tragedy could be showing symptoms of being severely emotionally disturbed. Here's where the media effects research, which often uses punching rubber dolls as a marker of real-world aggression, becomes problematic. The kid who is punching a toy designed for this purpose is still within the "magic circle" of play and understands her actions on those terms. Such research shows us only that violent play leads to more violent play.

Video games are new, culturally speaking, and plenty of opinions abound. Our conception of video games can't keep up with their development.

Jenkins' essay is based on extensive research and covers eight myths including 'only kids play video games,' 'girls don't play video games,' and 'video games make their players violent.' In fact, four of the eight paragraphs discuss violence and video games, so it might better be described as a five-point essay.

However, the emphasis on myths of violence is not unwarranted, since there are many arguments out there and much legislation in the works regarding the topic.

I personally find myth six "Video games are not a meaningful form of expression" to be the most disturbing, at least for Americans. Jenkins writes, "On April 19, 2002, U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. ruled that video games do not convey ideas and thus enjoy no constitutional protection."

Does this mean that anything can be deemed to convey no ideas by a court and be taken out from under the protection of the first amendment? Can paintings and songs be legally censored via this loophole? And if something doesn't convey ideas, how in the world could it convince people to commit acts of violence? Since video games supposedly do that to too.

I hope Jenkins' well-founded article is taken seriously by law makers and parents alike. The vast canyon between perception and research data regarding video games is in dire need of a bridge. µ

Ok, so my math’s a little off, but fans can rejoice because Marvel’s First Family, the Fantastic Four, are back on the big-screen in a sequel to this year’s blockbuster feature film, set to debut July 4, 2007! The original four cast members will reunite with director Tim Story and writer Mark Frost. The first film, which earned over $150 million dollars, was credited with saving not only the world from Dr. Doom, but the U.S. Box Office from a record-breaking 19-week losing streak. Who will the FF save next? Keep checking Marvel.com for more updates!

Monday, December 5, 2005

In the dense central forests of Borneo, a conservation group has found what appears to be a new species of mammal.WWF caught two images of the animal, which is bigger than a domestic cat, dark red, and has a long muscular tail.

Local people, the WWF says, had not seen the species before, and researchers say it looks to be new.

The WWF says there is an urgent need to conserve forests in south-east Asia which are under pressure from logging and the palm oil trade.

The creature, believed to be carnivorous, was spotted in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, which lies in Indonesian territory on Borneo.

The team which discovered it, led by biologist Stephan Wulffraat, is publishing full details in a new book on Borneo and its wildlife.

"You don't find new mammals that often, and to do so must be extraordinary," said Callum Rankine, head of the species programme at WWF-UK.

"Lots of animals come past - it's much easier than pushing through the forest itself - and when an animal cuts the beam, two cameras catch images from the front and back."

Not a lemur

So far, two images are all that exist. But they were enough to convince Nick Isaac from the Institute of Zoology in London that the animal may indeed be new.

"The photos look most like a lemur," he told the BBC News website. "But there certainly shouldn't be lemurs in Borneo."

These long-tailed primates are confined to the island of Madagascar.

"It's more likely to be a viverrid - that's the family which includes the mongoose and civets - which is a very poorly known group," Dr Isaac said.

"One of the photos clearly shows the length of the tail and how muscley it is; civets use their tails to balance in trees, so this new animal may spend chunks of its time up trees too."

That could be one reason why it has not been spotted before. Another could be that access to the heart of Borneo is becoming easier as population centres expand and roads are built.

The WWF says this is the heart of the issue. It accuses the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which each own parts of Borneo, of encouraging the loss of native jungle by allowing the development of giant palm oil plantations.

Last week Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak, the larger Malaysian state on Borneo, said that such claims are unfounded and part of a smear campaign.

He told the BBC News website that palm oil plantations are mainly sited on land which had previously been cleared for cultivation or are in "secondary jungle".

But the WWF says species like the new viverrid - if new viverrid it be - are threatened by such development.

It is concerned that other as yet unknown creatures may go extinct before their existence can be documented.

The group is planning to capture the new species in a live trap so it can be properly studied and described.

Following a mysterious absence of several years, the Man of Steel comes back to Earth in the epic action-adventure Superman Returns, a soaring new chapter in the saga of one of the world's most beloved superheroes. While an old enemy plots to render him powerless once and for all, Superman faces the heartbreaking realization that the woman he loves, Lois Lane, has moved on with her life. Or has she? Superman's bittersweet return challenges him to bridge the distance between them while finding a place in a society that has learned to survive without him. In an attempt to protect the world he loves from cataclysmic destruction, Superman embarks on an epic journey of redemption that takes him from the depths of the ocean to the far reaches of outer space.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Legendary Pictures, a Jon Peters production in association with Bad Hat Harry Productions, a Bryan Singer film, Superman Returns, starring BRANDON ROUTH, KATE BOSWORTH, JAMES MARSDEN, FRANK LANGELLA, EVA MARIE SAINT, PARKER POSEY, SAM HUNTINGTON, KAL PENN and KEVIN SPACEY. Directed by BRYAN SINGER, the film is produced by JON PETERS, BRYAN SINGER and GILBERT ADLER. The executive producers are CHRIS LEE, THOMAS TULL and SCOTT MEDNICK. The co-producer is STEPHEN JONES. The screenplay is by MICHAEL DOUGHERTY & DAN HARRIS, and the story is by BRYAN SINGER and MICHAEL DOUGHERTY & DAN HARRIS. The director of photography is NEWTON THOMAS SIGEL A.S.C.; the production designer is GUY DYAS; the film is edited by JOHN OTTMAN and ELLIOT GRAHAM; the costume designer is LOUISE MINGENBACH; and the music is by JOHN OTTMAN. The film is based upon Superman characters created by JERRY SIEGEL & JOE SHUSTER and published by DC Comics.

Superman Returns will be released on June 30, 2006 by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

NVTempLogger Nvidia Temperature Logger

18 November 2005

NVTempLogger is a free utility which can record your Nvidia graphics card's temperature in the background as you play games, benchmark etc. and save the results to a log file. This allows you to view your temperature fluctuations and see the maximum temperatures it reaches when under full load during a game for example.

Firefox 1.5 RC3 Released

18 November 2005

Firefox Release Candidate 3 (RC3) has been released. Read more about it here. So far everything has been cool for me with the various pre-release versions of Firefox 1.5, and I recommend this update if you already run Firefox 1.5 - use the built-in updater to get it (Help Menu>'Check for Updates'). The final release version of Firefox 1.5 should be out any day now, so keep an eye open for it as it will be well worth the upgrade for all Firefox users given the improvements under the hood.

Windows Genuine Advantage on Firefox

18 November 2005

I just read at Neowin.net that Microsoft have released a plugin-in for Firefox which allows it to run the Windows Genuine Advantage check. What does this mean? It means that you can now use Firefox to download certain MS downloads which require the WGA check, but it doesn't mean you can run Windows Update on Firefox as yet.